Small tree or shrub (mallee) to 8 m high, often multistemmed. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough to the small branches, fibrous, grey to grey-brown. Glands (or ducts) sometimes present in the pith but only seen just below the nodes on young branchlets.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem rounded in cross-section, glabrous (expected to have hairs early in development but not seen in the field); juvenile leaves opposite, sessile to shortly petiolate, ovate to lanceolate, 4–7 cm long, 1.5–3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole or rounded, margin entire, apex acute, green, glabrous.Adult leaves opposite, petioles 0.4–1.5 cm long; blade lanceolate or falcate, 4.5–12 cm long, 0.8–3 cm wide, flat, base tapering to petiole or sometimes rounded, margin entire, apex acute, discolorous, glossy, green or occasionally dull, green, penniveined, densely to very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein present, oil glands island.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles 0.3–2.7 cm long, buds 3 or 7 per umbel, pedicellate (pedicels 0.7–1.2 cm long). Mature buds globular (0.5–0.8 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide), hypanthium pubescent, longitudinally ribbed, petals white with a green keel, stamens inflexed, anthers oblong, versatile, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, stigma blunt, mop-like, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 5 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white or creamy white.Fruit pedicellate, pedicels 1–1.3 (–1.5), cup-shaped, 0.6–1.3 cm long, 0.9–1.5 cm wide, longitudinally ribbed, not glaucous, disc descending, valves three or four, enclosed.Seeds brown, 4–6 mm long, flattened-ellipsoidal, dorsal surface smooth, hilum ventral.